Middle East Health speaks to Susan Tousi, Global Chief Commercial Officer at Illumina, to hear about the company’s commitment to optimizing healthcare outcomes in the UAE with the opening of their Dubai Solutions Center, and what the future holds for genomics.
Middle East Health: Can you please tell us briefly about Illumina and your role there?
Susan Tousi: My background is in engineering science and mechanics. I have spent the best part of the past decade in Illumina’s R&D organization where I was Chief Product Officer, heading the development of breakthrough, industry-leading products, including playing a key role in our just-announced NovaSeq X series of sequencers.
And for over a year, I have served as Illumina’s Chief Commercial Officer where I lead a team of over 2,000 colleagues located around the world to drive our global sales, commercial operations and strategy.
Illumina’s key priority is empowering our customers with cutting-edge and innovative systems needed to further unlock the power of the genome. By doing so, our customers can leverage genomic insights in clinical care, and provide patients with diagnoses and access to ground-breaking therapies. This focus on innovation has established Illumina as leader in DNA sequencing and array-based technologies – we serve customers in the research, clinical and applied markets, with our products used for applications in the oncology, reproductive health, life sciences, agriculture, and other emerging segments.
Middle East Health: Why did Illumina decide to establish a Solutions Center in Dubai?
Susan Tousi: The Emirates is a key region for Illumina, and because of the longstanding support we have received from the UAE Government, it made logical sense to open a solutions center where we can provide even more support for our customers.
Through the Solutions Center, Illumina is enabling our partners and customers, not only in the UAE, but throughout the region, to scale up genomics capabilities and build local expertise to support the delivery of genomic precision medicine to patients at scale.
We also see the Solutions Center as the culmination of our commitment to creating a lasting partnership with the UAE and its scientific and healthcare communities, and we look forward to our continued partnership with the UAE Government to strengthen the country’s world-class healthcare system.
Middle East Health: What does the Solutions Centre offer with regards genomics?
Susan Tousi: The Solutions Center is fully resourced with field applications and service engineers and also provides education and training opportunities through, guided, interactive demonstrations of Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology, specifically tailored for all experience levels.
The facility houses a fully-operational lab with our latest NGS technologies and solutions that can be used in a variety of clinical settings, such as oncology, genetic disease testing, non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT) and rapid diagnostic testing – increasingly so in newborn screening. With the occurrence of rare diseases in the Middle East – at 7% of the population it is higher than the global average of 2-6% – genomic sequencing at birth is one of the priority focus areas. At Illumina we are working to reduce the time to a definitive diagnosis for rare and undiagnosed diseases, shortening the diagnostic journey for patients and their families, with the ultimate aim of improving healthcare outcomes.
The Middle Eastern population, home to over 400 million people, is under-represented in the human genome variation databases. We are committed to ensuring that the human genome represents the diversity of people from all ethnic backgrounds, including those from this region. By bringing our knowledge and technology to the region, we are proud to support the creation of large national genome databases, contributing to the Arabic genome global data set. The accuracy and scalability of our sequencing platforms make us an ideal partner for large population genomics projects which are critical to innovation – findings will translate into greater use of sequencing in clinical workflows and actionable data for drug discovery across common diseases as we move deeper into the era of genomic medicine.
We’re excited that knowledge-sharing through the Solutions Center will increase genomic capability and access to genomics, as we look forward to improving health outcomes for all, and in helping to shape the future of healthcare in the region.
Middle East Health: What role is genomics playing in changing patient care and health outcomes?
Susan Tousi: NGS technologies and solutions are being used to revolutionize the practice of medicine, and we see a big trend towards expanded use of ‘comprehensive genomic profiling’ as healthcare systems have a growing need for genomic testing. We see NGS assays increasingly being adopted as standard tools for identifying and understanding genetic differences in disease, with labs deploying NGS-based molecular diagnostic tests for diseases such as cystic fibrosis, colorectal cancer, and for a wide range of other applications. Illumina is leading the way in making NGS technology more affordable and accessible.
We have extensive collaborations worldwide, including in the Middle East, for programmes to accelerate the use of whole genome sequencing as a standard of care in critically ill newborns. Whole genome sequencing provides the highest coverage of the human genome and has been shown to help those with a rare disease receive a diagnosis and help them get the care that they deserve.
The growing adoption of genomic sequencing is not only taking place by supporting the understanding of the risk of diseases but also through accelerating the development of targeted therapies as part of precision medicine. Early diagnosis and treatment with the most effective therapy leads to better patient outcomes and cost-savings for healthcare systems.
Middle East Health: What is the future for genomics in healthcare?
Susan Tousi: I am deeply passionate about how our products, inspired by breakthrough technology, will help take our customers to an entirely new level of genomics innovation in this decade and the next. Our expertise in market development and access has resulted in coverage of genomic testing for over 1 billion people around the world already. Illumina’s goal is to move from the era of the genome to the era of precision medicine, where genomic medicine becomes mainstream. In the future, being able to sequence the genomes of entire nations will reveal the genetic basis for diseases, transforming clinical care. But for that to happen there needs to be the next generation of sequencers and broader adoption of sequencing technology through lowering of price points. This is why I am excited about our new NovaSeq X series of powerful and faster sequencers. This innovative sequencing platform will not only help accelerate improvements in human health, pushing the limits on what is possible in genomic medicine and discoveries, but reduce the cost of sequencing a genome to US$200.
